I’m afraid to get started on this. I’ve been to three CTRs in the last 3 years.
Typical. It’s the ‘new age’ mindset of offering choice! Apparently - one has to be ‘seen’ to be offering choice. When I’ve asked the stupid question, “Seen by whom?” - I get the looks which suggest ‘Are you a consultant?’ - followed by some vague deviation. Everybody likes ‘to be seen’ to be doing good apparently - yuh know Big Brother is always watching. Ahhh… OMG! What am I saying - that can’t be right. Oops… I contradicted myself at here Can a person be forced to have repeated capacity assessments? - Law and practice / Mental Capacity Act - MHLO Forum I don’t know ‘man’, I’m confused, obviously. 
Of course!! Don’t you know that ‘everybody’ in the last 10 years is a mental health expert - and that if you’re like me - psychiatrists have to cower in a corner (nodding with head tilted slightly to one side, in a posture of the utmost humility).
On one CTR there was an ‘Expert by Experience’ certified and qualified as such by your beloved CQC. Who am I to say anything - to appear to counter any such ‘expert opinion’ or ‘advice’? As I’ve said before - I am NOBODY!
If/when I am asked my opinion I give it. If not I keep my lips zip-locked.
Reform? Of course - but it’s not happening any time soon. Loads of things are ripe and cold on the switched-off back-burner of reform. Take the MHA Bill - still a tangled mess and likely to be a jungle of mind-bending legalese whenever it is finalised into law.
It’s all about waiting lists for bodily problems - the main priority.
From your NHS England: NHS staff delivered a record 18 million treatments in 2024, as the waiting list fell in December for the fourth month in a row.
The overall backlog has dropped again from 7.48 million to 7.46 million, while the estimated number of patients waiting is down from 6.28 million to 6.24 million.
Monthly figures show that hardworking NHS staff delivered a record 18 million treatments in 2024, hundreds of thousands (4%) more than in 2023 (17.35 million) and 5% more than in 2019 (17.1 million).
For the real scoop on why nothing will change in mental health faster than glacial speed, get the facts and figures summarised from the Darzi Report: Findings of Lord Darzi’s Report 2024